Green gets gold at Nature’s Olympics

Sat, 15 Sep 2012

Jeju Island, Republic of Korea, 15 September 2012 (IUCN) – As economic difficulties continue to dominate international debate, IUCN’s World Conservation Congress has put nature back centre stage in the quest to recover our natural assets and use nature to solve a growing list of economic and social issues.

Photo: IUCN /Artur Beltran

“The Congress, which has become known in Korea as “Nature’s Olympics”, has brought home gold for conservation,” says Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General. “It has demonstrated how nature-based solutions, as expressed in the Congress slogan “Nature+”, help us address many of our most pressing challenges.”

More than 10,000 people participated in the 2012 Congress on Jeju Island, including over 5,000 conservation experts from 153 countries and more than 550 events.

The crisis facing the natural world was underlined with new statistics on the decline of Caribbean corals and the publication of the top 100 most endangered species. Other highlights include updates on the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems, the IUCN Green List of Protected Areas, the Protected Planet Report and new findings on locally managed forests.

A strong emphasis was put on business responsibility. Major corporations, such as Nespresso and Rio Tinto, set new standards in sustainable practise, while Microsoft and Google signed up to support innovative conservation technologies. A €20m investment in biodiversity and protected areas management was announced by IUCN and the European Union.

More than 180 motions were proposed to the Members’ Assembly, IUCN’s unique global environmental parliament bringing together governments and non-governmental organizations to debate and vote.

The Assembly approved resolutions on a wide range of issues including action to recover Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks and avert extinctions of rare dolphin species; shutting down illegal bear farms; scaling back offshore drilling in French Guiana, Suriname and Guyana; and providing better payment channels for ecosystem services in poor countries.

Action on stopping the escalating poaching of elephants and rhinos was approved, and the push for a globally binding treaty on protecting wildlife from mercury contamination was endorsed, as was greater enforcement of laws on wildlife crime and reducing the impact of recreational divers on marine environments.

IUCN’s work programme for the coming four years was also approved, recognizing that global production and consumption patterns are destroying nature, and at the same time, people, communities, governments and business are underutilizing the potential of nature and the solutions it provides. The new programme builds upon IUCN’s niche as the world’s leading authority on biodiversity conservation.

As the Congress drew to a close, Zhang Xinsheng of China was elected as the new President of IUCN for the coming four years. Zhang is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Eco-Forum Global, and a devoted advocate for environmental protection and sustainable development.

“I am honoured to have been elected IUCN President in such an era when the world needs IUCN more than ever,” says Zhang. “This Congress has showed, more than ever before, how by valuing and conserving nature, we can achieve a more prosperous and harmonious society”

Editors Notes:

The Forum:

Nature+: Better knowledge is contributing to better conservation and human well-being—the focus on quantitative evaluation of success and sharing lessons learned is enabling successful approaches to be scaled and replicated across the planet.

Nature+ people and governance: Local involvement is crucial for conservation and management of biodiversity and ecosystems in order to meet peoples’ needs.

Nature+ development: Biodiversity and business are learning each other’s language—the impact from development on biodiversity and ecosystems needs to be addressed in sustainable development frameworks.

IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, helps the world find pragmatic solutions to our most pressing environment and development challenges. IUCN is the world’s oldest and largest global environmental organization, with more than 1,200 government and NGO members and almost 11,000 volunteer experts in some 160 countries. IUCN’s work is supported by over 1,000 staff in 45 offices and hundreds of partners in public, NGO and private sectors around the world.